MTJP CORPS · MORE THAN JUST PARKS ·MTJP Corps

MTJP Corps · Eyes on America’s public lands

We are
the oneswho go.

A national community defending America’s public lands with boots on the ground. When the paperwork and the place tell different stories, one of us goes and sees for ourselves.

Join the CorpsSee where eyes are needed

Free · Thirty seconds · Nobody sends you anywhere

Prince of Wales Island, Tongass National Forest / More Than Just Parks
Why this matters

Every acre they take,
they take on paper first.

A ranger writes no old growth in this unit. Nobody checks. The sale goes through, the road gets built, the trees come down, and the sentence that made it legal was wrong the whole time.

Here is the part almost nobody knows: before a decision like that is signed, the agency has to open it for public comment, usually for 30 days, and it has to answer what comes in. Anyone can write. You do not need a lawyer, a group, or a title.

Everything sent in during that window goes into one file, and that file is the only thing a judge is allowed to look at afterwards. Not what was true. What was on the record before the signature. A photograph of the actual ground, dated and located, is the one thing in there nobody can argue with.

There is a place.
There is a decision being made about it.
The paper can only tell you so much.
Somebody has to go look.

An orange Forest Service tag reading Timber Sale Boundary tied to a mossy trunk with pink flagging
The agency’s own tag. Tongass National Forest. The document calls this a cut unit. The trees behind it are the argument.
Two people at the cut face of a felled old-growth tree, one with a hand on the trunkTongass National Forest / More Than Just Parks

Approved on paper. Cut on the ground.

A unit the Forest Service signed off on, photographed after the saws came through. The Corps is who gets there first, while it’s still a sentence in a document and the trees are still standing.

The map

Put yourself on the map.

Orange is a decision with an open window. An empty ring means nobody’s near it yet. Small dots are places the Corps watches between windows. Green is the Corps. Your dot lands somewhere in the rough 35-mile square you live in, never at your house and never your address.

Loading the map
Eyes needed, people goingEyes needed, nobody near it yetWatchedThe Corps
68
Places to check
369
People it would take
0
Said they’ll go
28
With nobody near them
Read live from the Public Lands Action Network, last run October 17, 2026. Every window is the agency’s own closing date. Member dots are rough 35-mile squares, never a street, and they appear once 15 people have joined.
Eyes needed

Where eyes are needed right now

Every mission gets a number when it opens and the number is never reused. The next window shuts today. The clock is the agency’s own deadline.

Closing soonestNobody near itJoin to see what’s near you
42Deschutes National ForestOn the Deschutes National Forest acres being considered for geothermal leasing, walk to…Todaylast day to commentnobody yet46White Mountain National ForestWalk the forest edge where the ski trails end and the woods begin at Loon MountainTodaylast day to commentnobody yet30Little White SalmonWalk the older forest in the Little White Salmon country on the Gifford Pinchot…Gifford Pinchot National ForestTodaylast day to commentnobody yet49Okanogan National ForestIn the Little Giant burn on the Okanogan, photograph the standing fire-killed trees before…Todaylast day to commentnobody yet44Umpqua National ForestWalk into the thinning units marked as plantations inside the Late Successional Reserve…Todaylast day to commentnobody yet45Willamette National ForestWalk into the Fall Creek thinning units on the Middle Fork district that sit in…Todaylast day to commentnobody yet13Brian Head expansionWalk East Snow Mobile Road and South Spring Circle above Brian Head and find where the small…Dixie National ForestTodaylast day to commentnobody yet09South Uncompahgre fuelsIn the treatment stands on the south Uncompahgre Plateau, photograph the thickest timber you…Uncompahgre Plateau (GMUG National Forests)Closedcomments shut Sep 21Record open
evidence still counts

6 more missions need eyes right now. See all of them on the map.

How it works

You tell us your ground.
We tell you when it needs you.

  1. You tell us your ground. A ZIP and the places you already go. Thirty seconds, and it’s all we ever need from you.
  2. We tell you when eyes are needed. One email when a decision opens near you: what it is, what to look for, how far, how long.
  3. You go, or you don’t. What you find goes into your own comment, under your own name, and to the lawyers on the fight if you say so.
MTJP Corpsnow
Eyes needed near you · Mission 13
Brian Head expansion. Walk East Snow Mobile Road and South Spring Circle above Brian Head and find where the small year-round creek meets each road. Closes tonight. Wants 6, 0 going.
I’ll lookNot this one
The method

Evidence, not vibes.

Your phone records where and when. We read that off the file on our own server, never from anything the browser claims.
Every photograph gets a fingerprint the moment it lands — a code from the file itself that changes if a single pixel does. It is how anyone can prove later that nothing was touched. The original is never edited, never replaced, never overwritten.
We check your coordinates against the decision’s own boundary and say how far inside it you were standing.
A photograph with no location still counts. Pair it with a phone shot taken beside it and it borrows the coordinates; on its own it is filed as it is, the record says so, and the lawyers judge the weight.

This is why a lawyer can use what you send, and why an agency can’t wave it away.

What you’d actually do

A Saturday. A phone.
Public land.

Eleven short checklists, one of them a blank page for what only a local would know. Each one is a way of testing a sentence an agency wrote. Follow the steps, keep your originals, say what you saw.

Old growthRoadsRoute useStream crossingsWildlife signSprings and waterCultural resourcesFuel and fire conditionGrazingRecreation useLocal knowledge

Read the field guide. It’s the whole method, and it’s short.

A person with a camera on a tripod among old-growth trunks
Tongass National Forest. More Than Just Parks.
A photographer standing on a felled log in a cut unit
Unit 346, Tongass National Forest. More Than Just Parks.
The deployment arm

When the job requires more,
we go farther.

When nobody nearby can go, when the place is difficult, when the stakes are high, or when specialized documentation is required, the Strike Team deploys.

Small teams enter the field to document what is there, locate what has been overlooked, and bring back evidence tied to the exact places where decisions are being made.

How the Strike Team works

I’m a groundtruther.
These are my public lands.

Ground-truthing is an old surveyor’s word. It means going to the place and checking whether the map is telling the truth. That is the entire job.

Possessive on purpose. The person who uses a place is the one who can defend it, on the record and in court. That’s the law of standing, and it’s why we ask where you go.

Hunters, anglers, hikers, climbers, paddlers, skiers, riders, birders, people who live down the road, people who’ve never once been called an activist. And the biologists, hydrologists, foresters, botanists, archaeologists and retired agency staff who know what they’re looking at. A record wants all of it.

A person kneeling on a fresh stump, photographing the cut face of a felled old-growth tree
Tongass National Forest. More Than Just Parks.
Join

Thirty seconds to a number.

Four screens. No password, no account, nothing to install. Numbers go out in the order people join and never get reused.

Cost
Nothing
Orders
None
Schedule
Yours
Email
One per mission
Your name, public
Never
Step 1 of 4 · Your ground

Where’s your ground?

Your ZIP puts you on the map as a region. The places you go are what we match missions to.

How far will you go for a day?
Type one and pick it from the list. As many as you like. The map runs on this.
The honest line. More Than Just Parks doesn’t direct where you go or what you do. Public land only, gates mean stop, never touch a stake or flagging, wildlife at a distance, and if you’re not sure, don’t. You go at your own risk, and the Field Rules and Terms say so in plain words.